Friday, 19 May 2017

Indian National Anthem

Every single time I hear our national anthem, I get goose bumps. It reminds me ever so gently, the greatness of our fascinating country. There was an ongoing debate if we should play the national anthem at the movie theaters or not. I saw some merit in those arguments. Where I did not see a merit was when some people were wondering if we should stand up for the national anthem at all. What is there to debate in respecting one’s national anthem? Do we debate if we should respect our elders? Anyway, the decision of playing the national anthem is already made. So there is no point going back to that debate again. The reason I am writing this blog is the way in which the National Anthem is played in the theaters these days.

I am a movie buff. I watch at least 3 movies a week. In all the theaters that I go to, all we get to hear is a usual rendition of the national anthem - nothing awe inspiring! It is a movie theater and the moments when the anthem is played can be made MAGICAL, to say the least. We have so many beautiful renditions of the anthem as below:

Have a look at another beautiful rendition of the anthem by a set of some incredibly gifted children.Watch this video from BIG Cinemas and I assure you that you will be moved. It is such a breathtakingly beautiful depiction that it will leave you a lasting memory. At a time when there is a lot of debate about the need for unity among people from different walks of our country and world at large, imagine what such a beautiful message on National integration can do!

Imagine watching your national anthem beautifully depicted on the vast expanse of the silver screen. What a beautiful moment that will be! This is a humble petition to the theater chains to include the depiction of our national anthem in a way that lives up to its greatness.

Thursday, 2 March 2017

Words!

You know what is rare in the world we live in these days? Conversations. Thanks to the gadgets, we don’t even look at each other. Let alone talk. Rarer still are good conversations. Good conversations need good words. If you choose the words carefully, they have the ability to influence people. Carefully nurtured words make poets out of normal people.

Now coming to the way many of us talk these days. There is such a lack of vocabulary. It is either lack of awareness of words or just plain laziness. Here are a few examples:

I was surprised to see that – What the @#$%!

I was shocked to hear that – What the @#$%!

I am proud of your achievement – Dude, what the @#$%!

I was very happy to meet my friend – I met my friend and I was like, what the @#$%!

I met my family after a long time. I was so moved – I met my family and I was like what the @#$%!

My friend gave me a birthday gift. Something I have been wanting for a long time. I couldn’t thank him enough – My friend gave me a birthday gift. I was like what the @#$%!

I got very less marks in an exam I thought I will ace. I was very disappointed. – I got very less marks in an exam and I was like, what the @#$%!

If the above isn’t enough, the below words are used with such carelessness that will put a snail to shame:

Like

Stuff

Whatever

Bro

Dude (To be read as Duuuuuuuudeeeeee!!!)

Imagine all of us talking to each other with a set of 10 words and nothing more to add. How limiting will that be! If this continues, that is exactly where we will land up. Let us please start talking with words and not just lazy profanity.

Saturday, 6 June 2015

He

Theirs
was a broken relationship. Like any other father-son relationship, it had also
started with unblemished love and care for each other. He had fond memories of
his father from childhood. His was not a typical loving, showering with care
sort of a father. He was treated as an equal. For that matter, his father
treated everyone as equal to his age – be it children or those from the
generation bygone. Neither did his father shower love and affection towards
children, nor did he show visible respect towards elders.

All
through childhood, he grew up struggling to understand the dynamics of the
relationship they both shared. It was so unlike what his friends had with their
fathers. When he entered adolescence, he enjoyed the relationship thoroughly.
At an age when one yearns to be treated as a grownup, when one’s own father
does that, what more could one ask for? It was during the first year in college
that he learned of the growing distance between his parents. When he came to
know that the reason is another woman, he couldn’t wrap his head around the
situation. His parents eventually got divorced. The books he read, his friends
and even his mother after a while asked him to forgive his father for what he
did. His friends told him that whatever he did, that person is his father and
so, forget and forgive. He asked his
friends as to why is it so very necessary that one should forgive one’s father
or mother? They said because that is the nature of the relationship. How would
he know for he has never experienced that very nature of the relationship!

Time
passed by like milestones do on a long lonely journey. He thought to himself
that may be it is time. The unpleasantness is not helping anyone. Mother used to
tell him that she was in a happy place in life now and so was his father. She
asked him as to why he is bearing the burden of their broken relationship. By now, age had altered his perception of
righteousness. His idea of self and being selfish had undergone a sea of change
now that he had a family of his own. His wife told him to visit his father on
his father’s birthday. He asked his wife to come along. She told him that it
was a journey he should sail alone.

He
thought he will call up his father. Even though his father wasn’t one who liked
surprises, he thought this might be one that he may like. He reached his father’s new house and he noticed how similar the garden was to one he had at his childhood home.
His father’s wife opened the door and welcomed him with a broad smile. She
rushed to call his father.

They
had not met for many seasons now. He did not know where to look or what to say.His father looked at him and said “Thank you
dear son. Today, I too forgive myself”.

Sunday, 31 May 2015

Why marry a Sales(wo)man?

This post is dedicated to all my
friends who are in sales and are getting married in the days to come. They can
use this as a collection of USPs ;). If you are already married and are in sales,
you might want to show this to your spouse.

To begin with, the biggest
advantage is people who are in sales are almost always on the move. This means
that your spouse will not be there 24*7 be it in the good days or bad ones. From
whatever I learned from couples who have been married for long enough, distance
increases fondness and more importantly, the arguments get cleared up on their
own, thanks to the short absences.

Since a sales person travels far
and wide, he/she will be aware of the best things to do, the best snacks to eat
or the best places to go to in every nook and corner of the country. The roads
and streets will be as familiar to them as your backyard which means you get a
tour guide for free. Add to this, the contacts that they have in every single
place. There will be one friend or mutual friend (in social media parlance)
whom they can call up and get things done. Since there is a lot of travel
involved, SOME of them will get gifts for you when they come back from a sales
trip.

A sales person will be one who
meets at least half a dozen people every day. This means that their ability to
connect with people will be way above the normal. This will work in the spouses’
favour. Whatever one means to say through words or without them, they will
understand it in no time. Also, every
marriage comes with a handful of painful relatives. They will handle them with
ease as if they were born to do it.

It is said that conversation is key
in a marriage. When you are married to someone who makes a living out of
talking, you will never run out of things to converse about. On the contrary,
there might be times when you want a bit of quietness. Don’t worry; just when
you are about to reach that phase, it will be time for the seller to hit the roadJ.

A sales person is so used to
chasing targets that if you want to get something done, all you need to do is hack
their excel sheet and add that to their monthly target! Include a weekly status
call about whatever you want and believe you me, by the month end, it will be
done.

Now comes the biggest plus of all.
Almost all the interactions you have will begin with a smile and end with one
too J.

p.s.(clue
for my fiancée) : Recruitment, in a way
is kind of a sales profile ;).

Monday, 18 May 2015

Sleeping
with a Lion

Please
play and listen to the video here before you read the blog :)

Whenever I have read
about or heard about people committing heinous crimes in a fit of rage, I used
to wonder as to what can make people so annoyed or worked up. Yesterday, I got
a taste of how such incidents happen. I was travelling by bus from home to
Chennai after the weekend. I am among those who cannot get even a blink worth
of sleep while travelling in a bus. Thankfully, it was a new bus and hence very
clean. It came right on time and they were even playing a nice movie. I told
myself “Buses aren't that bad after all!” Little did I know all that was going
to change in a minute!

The lights were dimmed
and I was adjusting the seat to get a comfortable sitting position. Right then,
there was a growl near my right ear. My first instinct was to think “How on
earth did Casper, my 2 year old full grown Rottweiler get in the bus!” I slowly
turned to see my co passenger snoring away to glory. Usually, snoring doesn't bother me much. My friends say I too snore. So I am not exactly in a position
to judge. Moreover it is a condition which the person cannot do much about.

But this guy’s snoring
started off as a mini motorcycle being started. I told myself that it will stop
soon. But it was just the warm up! Minutes later, it graduated in to a full
blown concert of sorts. The movie got over. The only sound in the bus was
this person snoring. It was so loud that people in 3 rows in front of us and
equally to the back could hear us. My empathy prevented me from waking him up.
Then he started doing variations (akin to arohanas and avarohanas in Carnatic
music). It goes up and up and reaches a crescendo. When I thought it was over
and as I heaved a sigh of relief, he started from exactly where he stopped. I
lost it and woke him up. He was duly ashamed and apologetic and he turned to
the other side. Just as when I was beginning to feel bad, here comes the
growl!!!

What surprised me was
that usually people snore and stop. This guy’s consistency was to die for. He wouldn't miss a beat. Now, it had become like a tractor on the road with a
failed silencer. I even recorded it on WhatsApp and sent it across to my
friends. They said they also haven’t heard anything of this sort. My patience
was waning. I started thinking of ways to silence him. I thought of landing a
punch right on his nose so that it will open up and stop the sound. Then I
thought what if the growl becomes louder! At one point, I pictured his head
being smashed in to the glass window. I even thought of going the CIA way. I
had a blanket and there was a bottle of water too. I thought I will do a bit of
water boarding. I started elbowing him every time he snored and he took that as
frikkin encouragement!

The beauty of it was that
he continued it all through night till 7:30 in the morning today! I have never
been through an endurance test of this sort. He woke up and asked me “Where
have we reached”? I had half a mind to tell him that he has reached my skull
and another minute more of snoring, he would have cracked it open with that
sound. I also wanted to give him some career advise “Go and do dubbing for the
Lion in the MGM cartoon”!

Friday, 27 March 2015

Happiness in Pixels

A photograph is one of the most beautiful expressions of art. What makes it so likeable is that it is pleasant on the eyes or it ought to be when some of us click that is ;). I think what makes it so mystic is the frozen time about that frame. In spite of all the advancements mankind has made, time has always been elusive. It has always slipped away from our hands. A picture gives us the illusion of having conquered time although for a moment.

It is indeed true that a picture speaks a thousand words. Is that why many a time pictures tell the most beautiful stories? What I like about the story woven through a picture is that it is open to the interpretation of audience unlike a story woven through words. A handful of words can tell only one story. A picture on the other hand, can tell a hundred stories depending on who sees it and how they see it.

The best thing about photography is that you can choose what you want to see and what you want to show. You might be looking at a pond with weeds spread all over. You spot a Kingfisher who has chosen to sit on a twig parched on a rock with water so clear around it that you can see the bottom of the pond. You can now click only that small periphery and make the whole pond look good. That is the magic of photography!

How can we not think of memories when it comes to photos. There are moments in life which one would want to revisit. I would say photographs are the best way to time travel. One look at an old picture is all it takes to bring the fond memories of the seemingly forgotten past to come rushing by. When you find time, sit down with your friends or family and go through old family albums. Believe me, it is like walking in to an old home where you spent your childhood in. If you are lucky enough, you will have someone to reminisce the story behind those photos with.

Photography used to be a selfless act until the selfie came along that is J. At every function, there used to be one family member or a friend who goes on clicking a moment of togetherness, happiness or celebration without them being a part of the frame. But on the brighter side, selfie has made photography more inclusive. The artist do not have to stand away from the art. He/she is also a part of the creation. It is like acknowledging the presence of the paintbrush on a beautiful canvas J.

Like any other art, photography too is an expression of the artist who clicks. I wonder how beauty is so obvious to them in the vastness of nature. I am amazed as to how they contain a story in an 8X10 frame. I wish if I will ever understand how they make a seemingly passing moment turn in to the memory of a life time!

Sunday, 14 December 2014

Pushpak Viman Chronicles

If you are a frequent flyer, there
are certain things one cannot help but notice about the way people behave in an
airport and on board a flight. The pattern is so obvious that one has to be
blind to not make a note of it.

Let us begin with the airports. The
first rush is to screen the baggage. Once the baggage is screened, we move to
the check in counters. Many a time, this turns out to be a long winding queue.
Some of us who are not used to standing in a disciplined queue make the
frustration obvious by making random remarks. Most questions are rhetoric. “Why
aren’t all the counters open?”, “Are the staff on leave?”, “Do they know what
customer service is!” and it goes on and on. The person standing at the front
of queue is in an LOC kind of a spot. He/she needs to be really alert and go in
to the next counter which becomes free. Delay it by a second and the people
standing behind you will start producing random sounds and rhetoric like the
ones we saw above.

At the counter, the overworked –
exhausted ground staff gives you a forced smile and a welcome greeting. If one
is carrying excess baggage, one should pay for it. Instead what do we do?
Random rhetoric comes here again “This is not the first time I am flying!”. “I
am never flying by your airline again!”. During boarding, the ground staff
announce clearly that the rows at the back need to board first so that there is
less congestion inside the aircraft. But who are they kidding? Everyone from
rows 1 to 16 will be at the counter demanding to get in first, shouting and arguing
with them.

More interesting things happen
inside the aircraft. This starts with NOT greeting the cabin crew at the door.
Again the over worked – exhausted cabin crew greets each and every passenger at
the door. Most of us don’t even have the courtesy to look at them. Now starts
the efforts to place the cabin baggage. Ideally, one should quickly place it in
the overhead cabin and take one’s seat. But no! We take our own sweet time,
place the bag exactly above our head and then look around and stand in the way!
After getting everyone seated just when the cabin crew get ready for safety
briefing, we feel thirsty and if the water is not served in the next 10
seconds, starts the rhetoric again!

The safety briefing is the most
futile exercise I have ever seen. Right at that moment, many of us get occupied
like never before. Some of us will be reading the newspaper or a book, others
will be busy with the cellphones and some will look anywhere else but towards
the person doing the safety briefing. The underlying vibe here is that I am a
frequent flyer and I need not listen to the briefing! Don’t even get me started
with the food and beverage being served. Yes I agree that most of it is so
synthetic that you don’t feel like even chewing them let alone enjoy the taste.
But there is a menu card and these are the only options available. Why should
one start enquiring about the spread as if it were a 5 star restaurant buffet? Then
there are some people who would want to visit the wash room exactly during take off
and landing. I do not know what adrenalin rush they get from doing this!

The funniest part comes during the
landing. The moment an aircraft lands, people get up as if they are poked from
beneath the seats! They start opening the overhead cabin and pulling the bags
with absolutely no concern if the baggage is hitting an elderly person nearby
or a child. Everyone knows that the door will open only after a while and until
and unless people in the front rows get out, people in the subsequent rows
cannot move. But no, neither will they sit down nor will they stop taking out
their bags. You might think they are trying to save time. But these people have
to go and stand at the baggage belt till their bags arrive. However fast these
people arrive there, it takes some time for the baggage to reach the belt from
the aircraft. Not to mention, ignoring the cabin crew who thank us continues
during exiting the aircraft also.

We do all this and wonder why the
foreigners look down on us at the airports!

Sunday, 9 November 2014

When
I woke up a tad bit too early…

I woke up listening to my Grand
father’s slippers tapping against the floor. He started wearing to ward off
pain in the joints which he thought is due to the cold floor. I could hear ‘Rangoli’
blaring on the TV which meant it is a Sunday. I woke up from the bed and saw
the Mosaic flooring of my house and felt something was different. My mother
asked me to brush and come for the tea. Near the wash basin, was kept the
toothbrush and Cibaca toothpaste. I went downstairs and took up the day’s Newspaper.
There wasn’t anything which interested me.

We all had breakfast together and
dad told that we will go for a movie in the afternoon. After breakfast, we all
sat together and watched ‘Sri Krishna’. When the last advertisement post the
program was running on the TV, the power went off. We knew it won’t be back for
at least an hour. My sister and I took our cycles and went over to our friends’
places. My friend Ravi’s father had bought a Maruti 800. What a car! It did not
even make a noise when it moved. The interiors looked very modern and plush. Both
of us reached home for lunch. After lunch, we went to the theatre in a bus.
There was a long queue outside the theatre but thankfully, the ladies’ queue
was smaller. We got the tickets and went
inside the theatre. We got some chips and a Campa cola. Dilwale Dulhaniya Le
Jayenge was becoming a huge hit with relatively new stars, Shahrukh Khan and
Kajol. After the movie, we went for a walk on the marine drive. It was a pleasant
evening. The road was full of new Maruti cars. The Premier Padminis and the Ambassadors
stood the ground even though they were fighting a losing battle as my father
often said.

We were home by 6 o clock just in
time to catch ‘The Jungle book’. It has always been a mixed feeling to watch
this show for it meant that Sunday is coming to an end. Grandfather sat down to
watch the 7pm news and we went to check if there is any pending home work. Thankfully,
there were none. Turning my Crompton greaves fan to full speed, I went to bed
by 9 after dinner.

I woke up with a start. I checked
if my cell phone was near my pillow. I swiftly checked if it was connected to
net and if I had any notifications on Facebook and whatsapp. The air conditioner
was working and the flooring was familiar grey marble. I ran down and asked my
mother where the newspaper was. It was the 10th day of November of
2014.I let out a sigh of relief. Father called out to me to book movie tickets
for an afternoon show and to connect the laptop so that he could skype with my
sister. Before I could think about what had just happened, my whatsapp pinged continually
for my attention.

Saturday, 4 October 2014

My
life as an actor started on a Friday and I know that it will end on a Friday. I
am aware of the reality that all I can do is to push my last Friday as further as
I can.

I vividly remember my first release
day. I have always heard of people talking about being happy, worried and
scared all at the same time. That day, I learned what exactly it felt like. It
was strange. I wasn’t sure if people would like me. The first time I saw myself
on the silver screen, I cringed. All I could see were the flaws in my
appearance and acting. My first film evoked mixed responses. Some people liked
me but I knew most were being polite when they said I did well for a debutant.

By the time my second film released,
I had a faint idea about the craft of acting and how things worked in the
industry and among the audience. That film was a success or in industry terms,
a super hit! More people appreciated my work. I started showing up on Google
much to my surprise and my social media presence increased considerably.

I remember feeling awkward while
giving the very first interview. I kept on thinking why would people want to
know about my personal life! What interest it is for to them? More strange was
the first photo-shoot. Having never been an obviously good looking person ever
in my life, I had to tell myself repeatedly that I am in a photo shoot and my
face would grace a magazine’s cover which I grew up reading.

I also remember walking on to a
stage once and people screaming my name. All I did was smile in wonder. A
senior actor standing next to me was kind enough to tell me that I should
acknowledge their love. He asked me to wave at them. I did it reluctantly and
saw how much people enjoyed the reciprocation! The brand manager of the product
that I endorsed was “Your face sells. You need to understand that and start leveraging
it”. My manager, a veteran in the field nudged me and told me later. “This is a
make believe industry. An actor needs to believe in oneself first. Only then
will you be able to make others believe the parts you play.”

Although I knew I was becoming
popular, the realization of it never sunk in fully. Strangely enough, it was
the first minor controversy that hit me made me understand the scale of my popularity
and the responsibility that it brought along.

Now I know why people never want to
quit acting. There are very few professions which are as gratifying as this.
Even fewer where one gets appreciated for one’s work on such a large platform.
Yes, the failures are public but then everything in Life comes with a price. The
greatest thing about being an actor is that everyday, one gets to laugh, cry,
be angry, be lonely, be hated, be loved; all for reasons of not one’s own. Every
day, one gets to be a new person. Every day, one gets to live a new life.

Sunday, 21 September 2014

Having
finished the recruitment process at a college, I was getting ready to leave for
home. It was about 7 in the evening. When I saw a message blinking on my cell
phone from my colleague and friend, Mr. Pai asking me to call back immediately,
I knew I should start packing. I called him up and he said that I need to
travel to Agartala the next day morning. To be honest, it took me sometime to place
the state on the map. All I knew was that it is in the East.

The next day, one of the connecting
flights got delayed and I had to stay the night in Calcutta. When the hotel
manager gave me the same room that I had stayed in, the last couple of times, I
knew that Calcutta was slowly becoming a friend from an acquaintance. On board
the flight to Agartala, I couldn’t stop admiring the landscape. There were little
water bodies strewn all over amidst lush green patches. The moment I landed, I
got a call from a spirited young student, Gangu who was to surprise me time and
again over the next two days with his wisdom beyond his age. Enroute the
campus, we talked about almost anything and everything under the sun. How
Agartala has a large Bengali population to How people tend to think of it as a
much smaller city than it actually is to How your phone can go on International
roaming due to the Bangladesh border which is about 3 kms away to how sparsely
populated the city is!

The roads and the landscape reminded
me so much of my home, Kerala. The similarities were striking. Vast fields,
little streams, winding roads in between, cattle roaming about and the tress
that lined parts of roads – all of it reminded me of Kerala. The moment I
reached the institute(NIT Agartala), I knew I was to stand corrected about many
of my stereotypes. To begin with, the infrastructure of the institute was really
robust. The college was on an expansion spree to the extent that one of its
buildings was turning out to be the largest in the city. What interested me was
the fact that local labor wasn’t easily available. They were few in number and they were mostly
interested in Agriculture and fishing. Every home had a small pond in their
backyard.

The next day, I woke up with a
start. It was as bright as if it were 10 in the morning, thanks to the proximity
to Arunachal Pradesh. It was only 7 o clock and I stepped out to the balcony of
the guest house where I stayed in. A spectacular back water view welcomed me.
The picture here doesn’t even begin to do justice to its beauty when seen live.
What did not quite go as per my expectations was the weather in Agartala. It
was quite humid. But I hear it was pouring the days before and the days after I
left. May be it was East’s way of making me feel at home. I must say it did make
me feel like I were in Chennai of March J.

Once the drive was over, I retired
to the guest house. The placement coordinators joined me for dinner. A bunch of
bright young guys – Alam, Nipun, Gaurav and Gangu. Their clarity of how to go
about life reminded me of how much in contrast how I was when compared to them.
To say I was clueless at that age would be an understatement. I think their sensibility
and sensitivity came from the situations that they were brought up in. Gaurav’s
father was in BSF due to which he has travelled far and wide. Nipun lives in a
joint family and the kind of learning he has had from that ecosystem is
tremendous. Alam who comes from a large family with many elder brothers and
sisters would have understood the meaning of selflessness from that upbringing.
Gangu had his way with words and getting things done which reminded me time and
again that this guy like three of his friends is going to do really well in
Life.

Alam and I talked over dinner and he
said how happy his family was with his job. His elder brother called from
Sharjah and talked for almost an hour and how emotional all of them were. When
he said that he wished if his father were there to see this achievement of his,
I also had to fight my eyes from getting moist. Then I realized yet again that
I was doing a job which had the power to change people’s lives. At the same
time, I reminded myself that it was not I who was changing their lives, I am
just a miniscule part of it.

We went on a walk around the campus.
It was close to midnight. The night there was so refreshingly different from
what I am used to. The silence was strikingly conspicuous. The moonlight was indulgently
doing graffiti with the huge trees on the lush lawns. The lake resembled a
canvas when it reflected the moon in all its glory. For as far as my eyes could
see, it was nature at its best.

The next day morning, Alam and I
started for airport. The number of cars on the road was countable. It was so
relieving to not having to manoeuver through clogged traffic. I badly wanted to
take a piece of Agartala with me. We chanced up on an art gallery on the way
and I picked up a statuette which looked like a woman at work from that part of
our country. When I reached the airport and was about to board, I found myself
strangely going to miss Agartala. In two
days, I had grown fond of this place and its people. It is for a reason that
they say one cannot help but fall in love with East once you visit that place.

Sunday, 8 June 2014

In Love with my Baggage

By virtue of my profession of being
a recruiter, I spend more days in a hotel room than my own rented house in
Chennai. I have come to travel more in the last two years of my Life than I
have travelled in the whole of
the quarter century of my Life!

I am not someone who has enjoyed
travelling from quite early on. But now, a bit of wander lust has set in. There
is an interesting thing about travelling. As much joy there is in seeing new
places, when you are away for quite long, one looks for a hint of familiarity.
This might be the reason why people prefer hotel chains to those that are
standalone. Apart from the hotels, there is one constant companion for a
wanderer. His/her baggage! My slice of familiarity is my American Tourister
bag.

There is one more thing about
travel. The smallest of discomforts can turn in to a major hassle. One such is
tugging along the baggage where ever you go. In my case, I frequent most of the
railway stations and airports. Quite often, one can’t help but feel like
pulling along a bullock cart. Worse is the case when the baggage needs to be
pushed around. One feels like a vegetable seller on wheels.

And enter, the four wheeled bag! I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. It just glides along
ever so smooth. The effort required to move it around it near to zero. Moreover,
it looks pleasant on the eyes too. Akin to that quote about friends, it chooses
to glide beside you. Neither behind nor ahead, thanks to its wheel design.

Coming back to the familiarity bit, Once
I reach my hotel room, the sight of my baggage puts me at ease. The fact that
there is something/someone that goes through the same journey lends me a sense
of calm. Isn’t it the same with emotional baggage too? Even though we all love
to shed our baggage, there is a sense of familiarity we develop towards our
problems. We know how to deal with them. We know when they will crop up and how
to pacify them.

Some problems lend us a sort of
identity too. We would have grown with them. They would have moulded us in more
ways than one. There would have been times when they would have made us weak
but only to emerge stronger. Over time, we learn to handle our baggage thereby
becoming a better person. It is in a way true when they say our problems maketh
us.

But yes, one needs to know when the
baggage becomes a tad bit too heavy for comfort and hesitate not to shed the
extra pound.